“Why does la petite souris only bring me coins when all the others get notes? ” asked my son, whose second tooth had just fallen out. La petite souris*, alias the tooth fairy was aghast. 5 euros?! Since when had the price of teeth per kilo risen so steeply? I had paid the same going rate for his first tooth as I had to my daughter when hers started falling out four years ago.

“I took the tooth and looked at it, weighing it in my hand. Even gold was probably cheaper. “I wobbled it all day with my finger” he announced proudly, holding up the blood stained implement in question. So that solved it then; I imagined that this sudden inflation must be to cover the French NI contributions entailed by a whole day’s manual wobbling.

“I mulled over this unexpected dilemma. I felt that I could hardly mouth off about la petite souris being nothing but tight-fisted vermin, but on the other hand I did not want to play at keeping up with the Jones’. Or the bakers’ as it is in our case. Our neighbours, who have got kids the same age as ours, have recently put the price of their bread up. Probably to cover this very sort of expenditure.

“Well, why don’t we wait and see what she brings this time” I heard myself reply, lamely buying myself another few hours. He seemed content with that answer and trotted off, leaving me to ponder how actively I should encourage the sale of body parts for monetary gain.

*La petite souris, or little mouse, is the French equivalent of the tooth fairy.